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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29685942">Future Tense</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaeTiann/pseuds/ShaeTiann'>ShaeTiann</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Imperial Outlander, Introspection, Multi, Theron POV, background Lana/female Jedi Knight, non-specific Outlander, set sometime between chapters 12 and 14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:39:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,182</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29685942</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaeTiann/pseuds/ShaeTiann</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If anyone had told Theron how the next seven years of his life would go when he started digging into the matter of Colonel Darok and the suspicious timing to the assault on Tython, he would have fallen over laughing. But strange times bring stranger allies, and during a moment of relative quiet, he finds himself wondering: <i>what's next?</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Outlander/Theron Shan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Future Tense</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm not a fan of how the expanded story arc goes. One of the primary rules of good story writing is how the characters are affected by and respond to the events they're caught up in, and all of that character development just got thrown to the side in the course of SWTOR's expanded story.</p><p>So here, with a ton of salt and much love: how the revelations of KotFE might affect an Imperial Outlander, how their relationship might affect Theron, and how the overarching events might have guided a slightly different outcome than the game gave us.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was rare, Theron mused, that things were so quiet that they had a moment to relax like this. The cantina was bustling, and all of the advisors and primary staff had been able to justify taking the evening off. Theron got a lot of shit for being a workaholic, and even now he could feel the niggling itch of a puzzle left unsolved. But it could wait. For the moment, there were more important things to worry about.</p><p>Sitting in the booth beside him, the Commander cradled their drink between their hands and leaned a little more into Theron's space, seeking permission.</p><p>It was a… <em> weird </em> dynamic between them. The Commander was Imperial, Theron was a Republic spy. Feelings should never have developed between them; but what had begun as an uneasy alliance had blossomed into a mutual respect and even admiration. By the time Theron ran into them on their way to rescue him from the Revanites, well….</p><p>You couldn't fake that look of relief in a person's eyes. They had stood up for him, defended him, and had vocally disagreed with Lana about her willful negligence which had led to Theron's capture. Seven years later and he was still awed that <em> anyone </em> had successfully extracted an apology, however reluctant, from a Sith Lord on his behalf. </p><p>When they'd first begun their association chasing rumours of Revanites, Theron had been worried that the two Imperials might try to wheedle Republic secrets from him; but neither had asked more than he was willing to offer, and even though he'd felt incredibly lonely during that time, he had also felt <em> at ease. </em> Nobody was leaning over his shoulder for once <em> Marcus</em>, nor prying into his downtime activities <em> Jonas, </em> and the people he had to work with had encouraged him to put the datapad down in the evenings to share a drink or two and talk shit about members of the Dark Council. Theron had felt free enough to dump some of his (non-classified) dirt on certain Senators, to the amused delight of his partners in conspiracy-routing.</p><p>So when the Commander had asked about Satele, Theron may have spilled a bit of long-held bitterness. It wasn't really fair of him -- Satele wouldn't have wanted to let Darth Marr know Theron might be leverage on her (he would be; her distance in his youth aside, Satele did care in her own way). But… he'd been tired. The painkillers had been wearing off. Maintaining a semblance of professional decorum during that meeting had consumed his remaining energy, and his patience had largely taken a leave of absence.</p><p>The Commander -- his ally, swiftly sliding into territory that could have tentatively been called friendship -- had expressed concern, support, bantered lightly and teased him, drawing his mind away from the pressing issues for a precious moment. When they'd kissed him, it had felt <em> real, </em> like Theron was appreciated and cared for, like they had seen the worst sides of him and found the whole package worth the risk.</p><p>The two of them had been risking <em> everything, </em> stealing private moments together when and where they could on Yavin IV, surrounded by military detachments from both sides who clearly didn't trust each other. If anyone who had cared had caught them together, Theron would have lost his job and possibly been brought up for an official inquiry; who knew what the Commander had risked. Knowing how seriously the Sith took things, probably interrogation and/or death.</p><p>Just for <em> him: </em> Theron, a Jedi washout, an intelligence analyst with no life outside his work and a long list of past relationships that had never survived his career for more than a couple of months. The knowledge had shaken him to his core then, and it still did now: that someone had looked at <em> Theron </em> and found him worth risking death for.</p><p>Of course it could have been a ruse, but the careful looks Lana had been giving them said otherwise. She pretended not to see anything and didn't utter even one word of teasing. If Marr and Satele ever found out about them, it wouldn't be from her.</p><p>Saying goodbye had been unexpectedly painful. There had never been any question in Theron's mind about trying to convince them to leave their loyalties behind, just as they had never once asked him to abandon his. In truth, Theron had allowed things to continue because he hadn't believed they would live long enough to see the end of it. So, it seemed, had the Commander. "<em> Who needs words?" </em> they'd whispered, and kissed him, soft and tender, gloved fingers weaving into his hair and pulling him close. Theron had started to speak, to say how sorry he was, and they'd pressed a fingertip to his lips, with a smile so gentle and sorrowful it damn near broke his heart. Message received: don't apologise for the inevitable.</p><p><em> Come with me </em> had never been an option.</p><p>Theron had spent two years denying that it still ate at him; denying that he thought of them every day, denying that the reason he'd stopped joining Jonas for nights out that ended with casual hook-ups had less to do with working hard to re-prove his loyalty and more to do with the fact that a certain Imperial loyalist had claimed Theron's heart and he didn't want a replacement. </p><p>Hearing about what had happened to Marr's fleet, though, had blasted that denial right out of the sky. Theron had got back in touch with Lana, asking what happened; maybe she'd actually liked him, or maybe she'd just been in shock, but she gave him straight answers instead of telling him where to get off, and then wrapped it up with, <em>"They're not dead, Theron. I can feel them, still. I'll be in touch." </em></p><p>Now he knew why the Commander had been pissed enough to force Lana to apologise to him back on Rishi. The thought of the Commander imprisoned somewhere, possibly being tortured, while everyone assumed they were dead nearly destroyed Theron. He'd thrown out all the alcohol in his Coruscant apartment so he wouldn't give into the temptation, and the feeling of time being wasted on the comparative minutiae of his actual job scratched and scraped at the back of his brain. Jonas, perceptive bastard that he is, had noticed; he'd suggested burning off Theron's restlessness with a night out and got snapped at for his trouble.</p><p>Theron had -- eventually -- apologised for that, but not before Lana had commed him on the massively encrypted secret frequency he'd devised. Theron had sent his apology to Jonas taped to the only bottle of booze he'd kept: an unopened bottle of Corellian brandy Jonas had given him to celebrate Theron's most recent promotion.</p><p>He had no illusions that he'd effectively sunk his seventeen-year career in the SIS when he'd packed up his essentials and bought a shuttle ticket to Nar Shaddaa under a pseudonym, using credits from one of his other pseudonymic accounts. It wasn't like his work mattered anymore, anyway. In the last few months since Zakuul's Eternal Fleet had come out of nowhere and effectively annexed the Republic, their department heads had played at pretending everything was fine and normal, while all signs pointed to the contrary. According to Lana, the Empire was in much the same state.</p><p>Theron had long since grown tired of sitting on his hands instead of actually <em> doing something. </em> He never had dealt well with periods of inactivity.</p><p>And now… now he sat in a cantina surrounded by people he by rights should never have become friends with, with his arm openly around the shoulders of a certain ex-Imperial whose faith and loyalty had been well and truly shattered. They'd looked <em> terrible </em> when Theron had first seen them upon his arrival at Odessen: too thin, too exhausted, moving like everything hurt.</p><p>It hadn't prevented them from hugging him tightly -- right there in front of everyone -- and murmuring, <em> "You're a sight for sore eyes," </em> the same greeting they had offered on Ziost six years earlier. The feelings were still there, stronger than ever, and Theron had accepted the knowledge that this was his life now. <em> Their </em> lives, now.</p><p>They had waited until the day's work was over, until the two of them were safely hidden in the Commander's quarters off the war room, before breaking down and telling him <em> everything, </em> including certain things they hadn't revealed to Lana. Theron didn't really know what it would be like to spend one's entire life in service to something that turned out to be a- a <em> lie, </em> an <em> abandoned experiment. </em> But he imagined it was similar to how he'd felt after being raised to be a Jedi and then told he had failed through no fault of his own. All those expectations, the promise that all the effort and stress would be worth it, and then finding out it meant nothing? He could understand their anger, their tears -- Theron had also broken something, flung it at the wall so hard it shattered, after being informed that he wasn't good enough.</p><p>The Commander -- <em> Theron's partner </em> -- was doing better since Valkorion had taken a cryptic leave of absence; better appetite, less prone to waking up in the middle of the night cursing at someone Theron couldn't kick out, able to focus on work without drifting off to glare at the corner of the room every few minutes. Force only knew how much hassle that creepy Sith ghost had been giving them. It was a relief to Theron, as well -- both of them had been uneasy about the idea of the Sith Emperor watching them in the privacy of their quarters.</p><p>"What do you plan to do?" Theron found himself asking. "When this is all over and things go back to normal, I mean," he added when everyone at the table looked at him.</p><p>The Commander frowned into their drink. "I'm not sure 'normal' is ever going to happen," they answered. "Too much has changed in the galaxy. Everyone has been forced to adjust and adapt."</p><p>Theron gestured to the cheerful crowd beyond the relative privacy of their table. "I mean… the Alliance. Are we all going to have to just… go home?"</p><p>The Commander looked thoughtful, then glanced at Lana. "In your professional estimation--"</p><p>"Hah," Lana snorted, but she was smiling.</p><p>"Shush, you. In your estimation, how many romantic entanglements have occurred since the Alliance established itself?"</p><p>"On Odessen?"</p><p>"Everywhere we have operations. That's including you and your Jedi Knight, by the way," they added with a wink.</p><p>The Jedi in question snickered into her hand. Lana gave the Commander a glare with no heat behind it, then pursed her lips for a moment. "Hundreds. Maybe thousands."</p><p>"Mmhmm, and in your estimation, how many of those would be considered cross-faction?"</p><p>Theron could see where this was going but he remained quiet -- his specialty was external intelligence; Lana's was internal.</p><p>"Roughly two-thirds; more, if we're considering smugglers, pirates, and bounty hunters an individual faction."</p><p>The Commander looked back out at the bar. "Infrastructure is nothing without the people who make it tick. Say we win. Say we beat Valkorion at his own game. Do you really think people will happily give up everything they've scraped together over the last few years and go back to what they were doing before? No. The defection rate from the empires will be tremendous, and they'd have nowhere to go. We're all here because the people we wanted to trust in sat back and did nothing, chose to use the opportunity to enrich themselves politically rather than working together against a common enemy." They turned their glass on the table, watching the water ring smear. "I'm not going back. I can't. I can't <em> believe </em> in that anymore. And if there are others who also want to stay…? Then we'll figure something out together."</p><p>Theron looked over at Lana, who met his eyes and shook her head. She couldn't go back, either. "Then maybe we should start thinking about future organisation," she ventured. "I know you don't want to remain in command forever--"</p><p>The Commander scoffed and leaned further into Theron's side. "I'm only the Commander because you pushed for it. Our Zakuul allies want me to sit on the Eternal Throne. I can guess why -- they think I'm Valkorion's next incarnation, they can't imagine their world without him -- and I don't want that. Zakuul can figure its own shit out. But if we settle anywhere else, either the Republic, the Empire, or both will try to annex us. They already dislike the concept of a third power existing in the galaxy, and let's be real: Odessen isn't as secret as we wish it was. We should already be looking for a backup base; we might as well look for something that can be more permanent."</p><p>They hesitated, and glanced at Theron, something guilty in their eyes. Before they could apologise for making a choice without talking to him first, Theron pressed his temple against theirs. "Wherever we go, you can count on me to be there too."</p>
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